New rules for ensuring access to Premium Rate services

The Board of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI) approved new rules for ensuring access to the Premium Rate phone services. The providers of public fixed-line and mobile phone networks, at the request of other providers, are obliged to negotiate interconnection agreements to guarantee end-users' access to Premium Rate phone numbers, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communique from the Agency. The Premium Rate numbers from the blocks 0900 XXXXX, 0905 XXXXX and 0906 XXXXX are non-geographic phone numbers that ensure access to such services as entertainment, games and contests, Televoting, useful general, business, marketing and other kind of information. Prices higher than normal are charged for these services. Currently, the Premium Rate services are provides only within certain telephone networks to which only the subscribers have access. The ANRCETI Board's decision says the providers that signed interconnection agreements will ensure their clients' access to Premium Rate numbers in accordance with the contract for the provision of content services. The providers that ensure access to the Premium Rate numbers must publish the list of content services they furnish, the charged prices and the Premium Rate numbers for the given services on their websites. According to the ANRCETI, the guaranteeing of all subscribers' access to Premium Rate services will stimulate demand and the development of the given services. The decision came into force on July 9, after it was published in the Official Gazette.